‘College football changed on a lie’: Reacting to Jimbo Fisher’s interview with Barstool Sports’ ‘Pardon My Take’

“My dad was called big Jim, I had an uncle Jim, Jimmy Lee. My aunt one day, this is a true story, I was in the first grade and every school teacher calls you by your real name. The first month of school, I got whipped and put in the corner every day for about three to four weeks.

“My aunt, who actually named me Jimbo, was the secretary to the principal at the school. My school teacher went up to her and said, ‘Juanita, I think your nephew John is either defiant and won’t listen or he has a hearing (problem). I think he truly has a hearing problem, he will not communicate with me.’ My aunt just kept working and she said, ‘Juanita, I’m talking to you,’ then she said, ‘Who are you talking about?’ ‘Your nephew John, he won’t listen to me.’

“She said, ‘Try calling him Jimbo,’ so she started calling me Jimbo and I never got in trouble again. I never knew she was talking to me. I had no idea she talking to me, that’s a true story. She named me Jimbo when I was 2 and it just stuck.”

“I always say this, I thought in 2020, we were truly the second-best team in the country. We were the only one-loss team in the history of the SEC to never make the playoff with an all-SEC schedule. We ended up being ranked fifth and they let Ohio State in with six wins and Notre Dame, who lost the conference championship just like Georgia did, and got out.

“I said going into the playoff this year, if you want the best four teams, Georgia is still one of those teams. Florida State should’ve been in the playoff. I’m an advocate of they went undefeated, they deserved to be in it. … You put two one-loss teams ahead of an undefeated team (that’s) an ACC champion. Whether if they won or not, they earned the right to be in it.

“The BCS and the computer was better than what we have now because it’s turned into an opinion poll. To have five conferences and four guys get in the playoff, what sense does that make? It was flawed from the get-go.”

“The last two to three years of this thing, there has been more change in college football than ever. It is unbelievable how this has transformed. In February, you can’t have kids on campus and (in) July you can’t, that is an NCAA rule. Every other weekend of every other month of the year, you are working seven days a week every day.

“You’ve got recruits, you’ve got people, there is somebody on your campus and things going on. Our staff worked every other weekend except for those two months. So basically 45 weekends is what we worked year-round. It has changed.

“Understand this – think if the NFL was open free agency. Now they just passed the other rule, that it’s unlimited transfers! It wasn’t just one, now it’s unlimited and you don’t have to wait until you graduate.

“Think if every contract in the NFL right now was negotiable. It’s unbelievable and people are tampering with players. College football right now, it needs a commissioner. We need to do this thing the right way.

“Go get your 50 or 60 teams – whoever is going to be in Division I – and make it more like the NFL. Intertwine your leagues of play a lot more so you can get a true playoff picture and play it more like you do with the NFL and do it the right way.”

“College football changed on a lie. I am going to write a book on this one day. I am going to write a book. When he wrote those numbers, I said, ‘My God, where is it at?’ I wish that would’ve happened. The amount of NIL deals at A&M at that time in all sports combined, he said our class was $35 million, there was right at a million dollars for all sports combined.

“That is why it upset me so much about it. You can insinuate all those things that have always been said. But you are insinuating that the families of – and I am telling you, that was as far from the truth as anything that was ever out there.

“And here is the big thing: all of the media went and ran with that story as truthful without ever checking it. And I am talking about the big dogs. I am talking about all of the people we regard as highly respected guys.

“College football changed on a lie. I am going to write a book about it one day!”

“You do not ever see it coming. I still thought we were playing well, we had a great game. We were hopefully going to finish out 8-4, have a chance to go 9-4 and we had the injuries that happened.

“I really think the team we had coming and what we had going was going to be a really good football team. But hey, that is it, that is their choice. That is what they make. I wish them the best and I hope those kids have success.”